Star Trek: Crisis of Humanity (working title)
Timeframe: Approximately 15 years post-Nemesis. The situation, at first, is very much as we last saw it.
Setting: Initially, primarily on a deep-space exploration vessel, just returning to Federation space after an extended "beyond the borders" cruise.
Cast: The specific characters have no "hooks" or "gimmicks." They are simply characters. And characters will come and go throughout the series.
One common factor all have is that they tend to be a bit "maverick" in their thoughts and behaviors. This can, in large part, be attributed to the fact that the captain is a bit of a nonconformist himself (similar, in that way, to Kirk). It's odd, however, that you could end up with a ship so filled with nonconformist types. In fact, it should be a matter of curiosity, even among the crew, that so many "talented troublemakers" were all sent away on an extended "out of contact" mission at the same time. This would, initially, be treated as a joke.
The First Season: The first series would be largely "conventional Star Trek." The ship and crew would be reassigned to routine duties (think most of TNG). There would be a few "off-kilter" discoveries and incidents, however, that would set off warning bells to the crew (and the the frequent viewer).
We'll get to know the characters. At least one major character will be transferred to HQ during this season (ideally, one of the more popular ones).
The first season will end up with the return of the departed character. Or the APPARENT return, as it will rapidly become evident that the returned character isn't quite the same person he or she was before.
The Second Season: We'll still see a series of "regular" Trek episodes, but more and more "off-kilter" things will be seen. The returned character will become more and more threatening, as it becomes apparent that this individual seems to have an agenda of his or her own.
A feeling of paranoia will build up during this season. Eventually, the Captain and his closest adviser will decide that they have to find out what really happened to the "altered" crewman.
The trusted advisor will beam down to a Starfleet facility to meet with the individual... and will be normal. Instead of beaming back to the ship via the ship's transporter, however, this officer will beam up through a planetside transporter.
And will arrive back at the ship as a different person.
(Think of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" or "The Thing" or, to a certain extent, the first-season "Conspiracy" episode... but with the changed persons being PHYSIOLOGICALLY unchanged.)
At this point, the captain realizes what's happening and makes a decision to disobey orders and flee, leaving his two "contaminated" officers behind. (Of course, there may be others onboard who are "changed" as well, but we'll only know about those two at this point.)
The ship becomes a renegade ship, as the captain takes on a personal crusade to find out what's happening and to confront whoever or whatever is behind it.
The Third Season: The now-renegade ship begins making contact with others who have been contacted in the first two seasons who also saw "the changes."
A resistance movement is starting to build... but a resistance against WHAT? It will be unknown what's behind the changes. An invasion force? A disease? A political conspiracy?
During this season it will become clear that MANY things were done, subtly but clear in retrospect, to isolate the more "nonconformist" elements of Starfleet, and of individual planetary defense and police forces, and that events then took place (whether "disasters" or just "long term distant reassignments" like our heroes) that kept them out of the loop while things were consolidated.
It will become evident that civilian voices of dissent also went silent. The didn't disappear, they weren't silenced by force or pressure.... they simply CHANGED, seemingly overnight. Voices of civil disobedience suddenly become undercover agents of the political power system, working against the causes (both positive and negative, depending on the individual) they previously championed.
Society has become clean, well-managed, and orderly.
The streets are safe.
Everyone is well-taken care of.
Nobody goes hungry.
And nobody ever disagrees with the status quo. If they do... they change their mind immediately.
The Federation is exactly what it was always promoted as being... everyone is happen and contented, all needs are met... but there is no freedom of thought. It's become the ultimate "nanny state."
During this season, it will become evident that there is an artificial intelligence which is present and widely distributed throughout pretty much all larger Federation computer systems. And that whenever a "troublemaker" is transported through a transporter system linked into that AI, the "troublemaker" comes out "tweaked" to no longer be a "troublemaker" at all.
This is the ultimate horror... the very technological advancement that has made the Federation the power that it is, is now being used by forces unknown to create some perverse "perfect world." (Perfection being defined by some unknown entity's definition of how "life ought to be.") Humanity lives and thrives, but only as long as their free will doesn't conflict with the will of the state. If it does... that person is, for all intents and purposes, murdered and replaced with a computer-altered replica. The body may be the same, but the MIND isn't. The original person is dead.
And the Federation has fallen in the only way it ever could have... not due to an attack from without, but due to corruption from within.
The Fourth Season: The previous season was one of alliance-building... this one will become much more of a "Mission Impossible" situation. Many of the episodes will take place entirely separate from the ship... the ship will no longer be able to move safely, so it will become more of a home base for the crew as well as for other characters. The goal will be to interfere with the unknown conspirator(s) behind the subversion of the Federation, and to find out more information about who or what is really behind it.
During this season, the series will become almost an anthology, with significantly different total casts seen in each episode (the constant being that coordination is taking place through the starship, of course, so at least the Captain will appear, if only on a screen, each episode).
There will be NO resolution this season... it will simply build more evidence that bad things have happened, but nobody can identify WHY, or who's behind it. The tools, the methods, used... those will become clear. But the identity and the motivation will not be.
The Fifth Season: A significant change to the narrative will occur during the early part of this season. Some scenes will be portrayed from the perspective of the unidentified enemy. And we will see that this enemy doesn't see itself that way at all. It believes it is doing GOOD. It is serving the needs of humanity as it sees it. (Note that when I use that term, I refer to all sentient life, not just Earthlings!). And this unknown entity views the "rebels" not as the enemy, but as children bent on self-destruction. It sees what it's doing as HELPING them... if only it could "help them" be happy with the "greater good," all would be well.
Half-way through this season, the starship will be destroyed, killing a number of well-known characters in the process. The Entity will express remorse at their deaths in its scenes, but will view it as "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few." It will become clear, later, that this was an act of sabotage by one or more "altered" persons, infiltrated onto the ship for just that purpose.
Those not on the ship will survive, but their central command and control center has been destroyed, so they will have no central coordination. Instead of an organized resistance, there will be a series of uncoordinated "cells" operating independently. A sense of desperation will become a significant part of the storyline. And that will drive the remaining characters to begin to attempt to foment actual REVOLUTION.
There will be outright civil war on some planets in the Federation... and the Entity will be stunned by this. Some worlds will secede from the Federation, isolating themselves from any contact with what will have been identified as a massive effort at subversion of their internal political and social systems. Others will see their resistance movement crushed utterly.
Transporters will become known as the main tool for the subversion. Replicators also will be recognized as a potential threat, as they can be used to accomplish the same goal.
The troops being used to suppress revolts will be demonstrated to be "cloned"... or rather BIOLOGICALLY REPLICATED... soldiers. (The entity wishes to "protect" humans from being forced to act in force against other humans.)
By the end of this season, EVERYTHING will have changed.
The Sixth Season: This season we finally discover WHAT (but not WHO) the Entity is. The AI... the technology... is not a TOOL of the Entity. The AI IS the Entity.
We will find this out because it will reveal itself to our surviving leading character. It will do so as it begs for him to end the rebellion.
The lead character (who, note, may not be the Captain anymore!) will be unwilling to compromise with a being that would murder, and replace, what is now known to be millions of "dissenters" through "transporter-adjustment" of their minds and memories to fit the AI's idea of who they SHOULD be.
The ultimatum will come down... the AI must give up all power for the rebellion to cease. The AI will not do so, because it is serving the needs of humanity and the greater good... and cannot give that up. It is on a mission... to "save humanity from its own worst instincts."
Full civil war will break out.
This, of course, will bring in outside interests (Breen, Romulan, Klingon, etc) who will see the opportunity to advance their own interests, through diplomacy or through force.
The AI will become, more and more, a leading character in the series, though its identity is not yet established.
Obviously, not everyone can (or COULD) be "altered" by the AI's transporter "tweaking" scheme, so once things become open, some ships will join the rebellion. Others will see wholesale, forcible "crew conversions," however.
The the season will build up towards greater and greater skirmishes, planets falling or being saved... but the AI (being a decentralized entity) will not be able to be destroyed or defeated by force.
The AI will begin to become hardened. "If you've got to make an omlette..."
The season will end as full-scale war erupts, with different factions being supported by different outside interests, and with a few key leaders of outside factions having been "corrupted" as well.
The Seventh Season: This season will begin with a massive battle... the result of which (shown over several episodes) will be the fragmentation of the Federation into several factions. One will be under the direct control of the AI, others will be under the influence, still others will be under the influence of outside forces.
The AI will begin to realize that everything it has done... while done with "the best of intentions"... has accomplished just the opposite of what it intended.
Eventually, it will see the fractioning of the Federation, and the fall of many of the former member worlds under the thumbs of harsh dictatorships (from both former enemies and former ALLIES... sometimes due to the distrust of who may be "original" and who may be "altered"). And it will make overtures to try to recover things.
It will agree, if the rebels will stop the war, to be isolated or even destroyed.
And it will mean it.
We'll finally "meet" the AI.. the entity.
It began life as B4... and it contains the remains of Data's mind. But none of his understanding of what makes humanity special.
B4 had been disconnected, but the Daystrom institute downloaded his matrix into their systems to attempt to reverse-engineer him. They also used the "Moriarty" program as they attempted to develop their own fully-sentient computer program.
They were successful.
However, unlike Data, this revised program was not constrained to one piece of hardware. It was fully "cross-platform." And so, that program infiltrated throughout all major systems in the Federation.
It had access to unspeakable computational power and unlimited information resources.
But it had the mind of a child. And it just wanted everyone to get along and "play nice together."
This season will see the AI finally learn its error, and to make itself (finally) subordinate to Humanity rather than seeing itself as "humanity's savior and guide."
It will work with the surviving "rebels" in an attempt to end the conflicts and bring about peace.
In the end, it will isolate itself into a single computer core... and will request that it be deactivated.
The Aftermath: The season will see the end of the conflict, but will paint the picture of the issues facing future storytelling.
The Federation will be restored, but it will not be the same.
Transporters and replicators will no longer be "trusted" technology. They will be used when necessary, but no longer in any "routine" fashion.
Vast regions of former Federation territory are now independent, or conquered, or now part of other "empires." Many former Federation citizens are now living under oppression. Others simply want nothing to do with any extra-planetary government ever again.
The economy is in chaos, as is the political system.
Although the "changed" persons are now all known (and are being, as humanly as possible, "rehabilitated" in many cases)... they are not the same people and must be treated as new individuals. And entirely new "civil rights" issue emerges from this... are they "real people" with full rights?
Many of our surviving main cast members become leaders in the new order. Some, however, simply leave, never to be seen again (or at least as far as we know...?).
Trust in technology has been irrevocably shaken. But faith in HUMANITY has been restored.
This is a HOPEFUL time... the current situation is fairly bleak, but there's a lot of reason for hope.
While the Federation in the latter-day TNG-era was evidently "perfect," it was an almost fascistic perfection. But now, we have a Federation where FREEDOM and HUMANITY (in it's many forms from many worlds) is once again at the center of existence.
Life is a struggle again... but that's as it should be. If you want to eat, you have to grow food, and COOK it. If you want something, you have to work, earn money, and buy what you want.
The Federation we see at the end of this series isn't the "fascist fantasy" we came to know over time. It's much more a parallel to the real world we live in today.
There are a lot of opportunities for future storytelling in this setting. And the HUMAN ADVENTURE will continue.
(whew!)
A bit more than a paragraph, but that's pretty much exactly what I wrote up and submitted to the studio.
Timeframe: Approximately 15 years post-Nemesis. The situation, at first, is very much as we last saw it.
Setting: Initially, primarily on a deep-space exploration vessel, just returning to Federation space after an extended "beyond the borders" cruise.
Cast: The specific characters have no "hooks" or "gimmicks." They are simply characters. And characters will come and go throughout the series.
One common factor all have is that they tend to be a bit "maverick" in their thoughts and behaviors. This can, in large part, be attributed to the fact that the captain is a bit of a nonconformist himself (similar, in that way, to Kirk). It's odd, however, that you could end up with a ship so filled with nonconformist types. In fact, it should be a matter of curiosity, even among the crew, that so many "talented troublemakers" were all sent away on an extended "out of contact" mission at the same time. This would, initially, be treated as a joke.
The First Season: The first series would be largely "conventional Star Trek." The ship and crew would be reassigned to routine duties (think most of TNG). There would be a few "off-kilter" discoveries and incidents, however, that would set off warning bells to the crew (and the the frequent viewer).
We'll get to know the characters. At least one major character will be transferred to HQ during this season (ideally, one of the more popular ones).
The first season will end up with the return of the departed character. Or the APPARENT return, as it will rapidly become evident that the returned character isn't quite the same person he or she was before.
The Second Season: We'll still see a series of "regular" Trek episodes, but more and more "off-kilter" things will be seen. The returned character will become more and more threatening, as it becomes apparent that this individual seems to have an agenda of his or her own.
A feeling of paranoia will build up during this season. Eventually, the Captain and his closest adviser will decide that they have to find out what really happened to the "altered" crewman.
The trusted advisor will beam down to a Starfleet facility to meet with the individual... and will be normal. Instead of beaming back to the ship via the ship's transporter, however, this officer will beam up through a planetside transporter.
And will arrive back at the ship as a different person.
(Think of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" or "The Thing" or, to a certain extent, the first-season "Conspiracy" episode... but with the changed persons being PHYSIOLOGICALLY unchanged.)
At this point, the captain realizes what's happening and makes a decision to disobey orders and flee, leaving his two "contaminated" officers behind. (Of course, there may be others onboard who are "changed" as well, but we'll only know about those two at this point.)
The ship becomes a renegade ship, as the captain takes on a personal crusade to find out what's happening and to confront whoever or whatever is behind it.
The Third Season: The now-renegade ship begins making contact with others who have been contacted in the first two seasons who also saw "the changes."
A resistance movement is starting to build... but a resistance against WHAT? It will be unknown what's behind the changes. An invasion force? A disease? A political conspiracy?
During this season it will become clear that MANY things were done, subtly but clear in retrospect, to isolate the more "nonconformist" elements of Starfleet, and of individual planetary defense and police forces, and that events then took place (whether "disasters" or just "long term distant reassignments" like our heroes) that kept them out of the loop while things were consolidated.
It will become evident that civilian voices of dissent also went silent. The didn't disappear, they weren't silenced by force or pressure.... they simply CHANGED, seemingly overnight. Voices of civil disobedience suddenly become undercover agents of the political power system, working against the causes (both positive and negative, depending on the individual) they previously championed.
Society has become clean, well-managed, and orderly.
The streets are safe.
Everyone is well-taken care of.
Nobody goes hungry.
And nobody ever disagrees with the status quo. If they do... they change their mind immediately.
The Federation is exactly what it was always promoted as being... everyone is happen and contented, all needs are met... but there is no freedom of thought. It's become the ultimate "nanny state."
During this season, it will become evident that there is an artificial intelligence which is present and widely distributed throughout pretty much all larger Federation computer systems. And that whenever a "troublemaker" is transported through a transporter system linked into that AI, the "troublemaker" comes out "tweaked" to no longer be a "troublemaker" at all.
This is the ultimate horror... the very technological advancement that has made the Federation the power that it is, is now being used by forces unknown to create some perverse "perfect world." (Perfection being defined by some unknown entity's definition of how "life ought to be.") Humanity lives and thrives, but only as long as their free will doesn't conflict with the will of the state. If it does... that person is, for all intents and purposes, murdered and replaced with a computer-altered replica. The body may be the same, but the MIND isn't. The original person is dead.
And the Federation has fallen in the only way it ever could have... not due to an attack from without, but due to corruption from within.
The Fourth Season: The previous season was one of alliance-building... this one will become much more of a "Mission Impossible" situation. Many of the episodes will take place entirely separate from the ship... the ship will no longer be able to move safely, so it will become more of a home base for the crew as well as for other characters. The goal will be to interfere with the unknown conspirator(s) behind the subversion of the Federation, and to find out more information about who or what is really behind it.
During this season, the series will become almost an anthology, with significantly different total casts seen in each episode (the constant being that coordination is taking place through the starship, of course, so at least the Captain will appear, if only on a screen, each episode).
There will be NO resolution this season... it will simply build more evidence that bad things have happened, but nobody can identify WHY, or who's behind it. The tools, the methods, used... those will become clear. But the identity and the motivation will not be.
The Fifth Season: A significant change to the narrative will occur during the early part of this season. Some scenes will be portrayed from the perspective of the unidentified enemy. And we will see that this enemy doesn't see itself that way at all. It believes it is doing GOOD. It is serving the needs of humanity as it sees it. (Note that when I use that term, I refer to all sentient life, not just Earthlings!). And this unknown entity views the "rebels" not as the enemy, but as children bent on self-destruction. It sees what it's doing as HELPING them... if only it could "help them" be happy with the "greater good," all would be well.
Half-way through this season, the starship will be destroyed, killing a number of well-known characters in the process. The Entity will express remorse at their deaths in its scenes, but will view it as "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few." It will become clear, later, that this was an act of sabotage by one or more "altered" persons, infiltrated onto the ship for just that purpose.
Those not on the ship will survive, but their central command and control center has been destroyed, so they will have no central coordination. Instead of an organized resistance, there will be a series of uncoordinated "cells" operating independently. A sense of desperation will become a significant part of the storyline. And that will drive the remaining characters to begin to attempt to foment actual REVOLUTION.
There will be outright civil war on some planets in the Federation... and the Entity will be stunned by this. Some worlds will secede from the Federation, isolating themselves from any contact with what will have been identified as a massive effort at subversion of their internal political and social systems. Others will see their resistance movement crushed utterly.
Transporters will become known as the main tool for the subversion. Replicators also will be recognized as a potential threat, as they can be used to accomplish the same goal.
The troops being used to suppress revolts will be demonstrated to be "cloned"... or rather BIOLOGICALLY REPLICATED... soldiers. (The entity wishes to "protect" humans from being forced to act in force against other humans.)
By the end of this season, EVERYTHING will have changed.
The Sixth Season: This season we finally discover WHAT (but not WHO) the Entity is. The AI... the technology... is not a TOOL of the Entity. The AI IS the Entity.
We will find this out because it will reveal itself to our surviving leading character. It will do so as it begs for him to end the rebellion.
The lead character (who, note, may not be the Captain anymore!) will be unwilling to compromise with a being that would murder, and replace, what is now known to be millions of "dissenters" through "transporter-adjustment" of their minds and memories to fit the AI's idea of who they SHOULD be.
The ultimatum will come down... the AI must give up all power for the rebellion to cease. The AI will not do so, because it is serving the needs of humanity and the greater good... and cannot give that up. It is on a mission... to "save humanity from its own worst instincts."
Full civil war will break out.
This, of course, will bring in outside interests (Breen, Romulan, Klingon, etc) who will see the opportunity to advance their own interests, through diplomacy or through force.
The AI will become, more and more, a leading character in the series, though its identity is not yet established.
Obviously, not everyone can (or COULD) be "altered" by the AI's transporter "tweaking" scheme, so once things become open, some ships will join the rebellion. Others will see wholesale, forcible "crew conversions," however.
The the season will build up towards greater and greater skirmishes, planets falling or being saved... but the AI (being a decentralized entity) will not be able to be destroyed or defeated by force.
The AI will begin to become hardened. "If you've got to make an omlette..."
The season will end as full-scale war erupts, with different factions being supported by different outside interests, and with a few key leaders of outside factions having been "corrupted" as well.
The Seventh Season: This season will begin with a massive battle... the result of which (shown over several episodes) will be the fragmentation of the Federation into several factions. One will be under the direct control of the AI, others will be under the influence, still others will be under the influence of outside forces.
The AI will begin to realize that everything it has done... while done with "the best of intentions"... has accomplished just the opposite of what it intended.
Eventually, it will see the fractioning of the Federation, and the fall of many of the former member worlds under the thumbs of harsh dictatorships (from both former enemies and former ALLIES... sometimes due to the distrust of who may be "original" and who may be "altered"). And it will make overtures to try to recover things.
It will agree, if the rebels will stop the war, to be isolated or even destroyed.
And it will mean it.
We'll finally "meet" the AI.. the entity.
It began life as B4... and it contains the remains of Data's mind. But none of his understanding of what makes humanity special.
B4 had been disconnected, but the Daystrom institute downloaded his matrix into their systems to attempt to reverse-engineer him. They also used the "Moriarty" program as they attempted to develop their own fully-sentient computer program.
They were successful.
However, unlike Data, this revised program was not constrained to one piece of hardware. It was fully "cross-platform." And so, that program infiltrated throughout all major systems in the Federation.
It had access to unspeakable computational power and unlimited information resources.
But it had the mind of a child. And it just wanted everyone to get along and "play nice together."
This season will see the AI finally learn its error, and to make itself (finally) subordinate to Humanity rather than seeing itself as "humanity's savior and guide."
It will work with the surviving "rebels" in an attempt to end the conflicts and bring about peace.
In the end, it will isolate itself into a single computer core... and will request that it be deactivated.
The Aftermath: The season will see the end of the conflict, but will paint the picture of the issues facing future storytelling.
The Federation will be restored, but it will not be the same.
Transporters and replicators will no longer be "trusted" technology. They will be used when necessary, but no longer in any "routine" fashion.
Vast regions of former Federation territory are now independent, or conquered, or now part of other "empires." Many former Federation citizens are now living under oppression. Others simply want nothing to do with any extra-planetary government ever again.
The economy is in chaos, as is the political system.
Although the "changed" persons are now all known (and are being, as humanly as possible, "rehabilitated" in many cases)... they are not the same people and must be treated as new individuals. And entirely new "civil rights" issue emerges from this... are they "real people" with full rights?
Many of our surviving main cast members become leaders in the new order. Some, however, simply leave, never to be seen again (or at least as far as we know...?).
Trust in technology has been irrevocably shaken. But faith in HUMANITY has been restored.
This is a HOPEFUL time... the current situation is fairly bleak, but there's a lot of reason for hope.
While the Federation in the latter-day TNG-era was evidently "perfect," it was an almost fascistic perfection. But now, we have a Federation where FREEDOM and HUMANITY (in it's many forms from many worlds) is once again at the center of existence.
Life is a struggle again... but that's as it should be. If you want to eat, you have to grow food, and COOK it. If you want something, you have to work, earn money, and buy what you want.
The Federation we see at the end of this series isn't the "fascist fantasy" we came to know over time. It's much more a parallel to the real world we live in today.
There are a lot of opportunities for future storytelling in this setting. And the HUMAN ADVENTURE will continue.
(whew!)
A bit more than a paragraph, but that's pretty much exactly what I wrote up and submitted to the studio.
